Reading Notes: Beowulf, Part B
For the second half of this week's reading, I enjoyed the level of detail included in the two stories about Beowulf's fight with Grendel.
It's interesting and odd to me that while Beowulf and Grendel are fighting, ultimately until Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm, that the two are totally silent. How in the world could the earls really be sleeping through that? I'm such a light sleeper, it's hard for me to believe. I wonder if in a retelling of that particular scene, I could tell it from the perspective of one of the earls who wasn't REALLY sleeping, but was just pretending so he could stay out of it and let Beowulf handle the beast.
I also wonder if I could write a sort of origin story about Grendel — how did he become the beast he is now? What was he like as a child? I think pulling from elements of the Wanderer's Song and from what we learn about Grendel's mother in the second half of the reading would make for an interesting story about a younger Grendel, perhaps before he became a fearsome monster.
Story source: The Story of Beowulf by Strafford Riggs with illustrations by Henry Pitz (1933).
It's interesting and odd to me that while Beowulf and Grendel are fighting, ultimately until Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm, that the two are totally silent. How in the world could the earls really be sleeping through that? I'm such a light sleeper, it's hard for me to believe. I wonder if in a retelling of that particular scene, I could tell it from the perspective of one of the earls who wasn't REALLY sleeping, but was just pretending so he could stay out of it and let Beowulf handle the beast.
I also wonder if I could write a sort of origin story about Grendel — how did he become the beast he is now? What was he like as a child? I think pulling from elements of the Wanderer's Song and from what we learn about Grendel's mother in the second half of the reading would make for an interesting story about a younger Grendel, perhaps before he became a fearsome monster.
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| Grendel looking mighty scary. Web source: Wikimedia Commons |
Story source: The Story of Beowulf by Strafford Riggs with illustrations by Henry Pitz (1933).
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